This invention relates to a method of and apparatus for manually closing foil containers and a tool therefor and, more particularly, to such a method and apparatus employing a hand-held tool which progressively folds an upstanding flange of the container onto the upper surface of a plug-type lid received on a shoulder of the container.
The types of containers to which the invention is most readily adaptable comprise round, elliptical and rectangular aluminum foil containers that have an upstanding vertical flange used to secure a flat paperboard or foil laminated to paperboard lid to an upper shoulder on the container. The vertical flange is folded over the edge of the lid to effect the closure.
A number of manual closing devices have been employed in the past, but because of their cost or their inability to do the job efficiently and on different sized containers they have not fully satisfied certain elements of the trade, for example caterers and small delicatessen stores. One such device consists of a hinged mating die-set and while it does an excellent job, it is relatively expensive. Furthermore, there is a limit on the size of the container that this type of machine will accommodate because of a limitation on the manual pressure that can be exerted. The known hand tools do not perform sufficiently well to be useful.